Minnesota

Author: saraamaden

POINT: At a mayoral candidate forum and in an op-ed in the Star Tribune, Rep. Ray Dehn called for disarming Minneapolis police. He said that officers don’t need to carry a gun on their person all the time and added that we can combat crime and improve safety by reinvesting resources in housing, education and health care.

Reading the Aug. 1 commentary by state Rep. Raymond Dehn, a candidate for Minneapolis mayor (“My approach to policing and public safety issues”), I have one concern. He states that the best deterrent to crime is providing people with affordable housing, healthy food, clean air and water, accessible education, and quality health care. Whatever happened to “get a job”?

Tribal and environmental activists in northern Minnesota are threatening to stage a protest similar to North Dakota’s Standing Rock conflict last winter to prevent Enbridge Energy from building a new pipeline to replace its aging 1,000-mile Line 3. “If that permit is issued, you can be sure you will have Standing Rock in Minnesota. I will tell you that,” White Earth tribal member and Honor the Earth executive director Winona LaDuke said. “We’ve been very clear with the state representatives, and the governor of Minnesota, that if they approve this line, there will be tens of thousands of people in Minnesota. Read about it here.

The Mission Statement of the new Museum of Capitalism in Oakland, California ends thus: Our educational work is crucial for establishing justice for the victims of capitalism and preventing its resurgence. Notably, the museum will also bring to light the vast number of individuals and communities around the globe who resisted capitalism and helped to develop alternatives to it, serving as an inspiration to future generations.

Before SPAM was unwanted email it was unwanted meat, the invention of Jay Hormel, son of George Hormel who founded the Hormel company. SPAM is short for spiced ham. It’s celebrating its 80th birthday.

Why haven’t we closed the achievement gap between white and minority students in fifty years of trying?

The achievement gap is “any significant and persistent disparity in academic performance or educational attainment between different groups of students, such as white students and minorities, for example, or students from higher-income and lower-income households.”

The gap between the level of achievement of minority students and white students in Minnesota is among the largest in the country. It’s not a new problem.Efforts to improve outcomes for minority students began with the 1964 Civil Rights Act which required that the commissioner of education “conduct a survey and report to the president and Congress…concerning the lack of availability of equal educational opportunities for individuals by reason of race, color, religion, or national origin in public educational institutions.” The result was the Coleman Report, published in 1966.

Page 325 of the Coleman Reports states: Schools bring little influence to bear on a child’s achievement that is independent of his background and general social context; and that this very lack of an independent effect means that the inequalities imposed on children by their home, neighborhood, and peer environment are carried along to become the inequalities with which they confront adult life at the end of school.

A 20-year-old study by the Brookings Institution posits that improving parenting skills may be as important as improving schools but immediately acknowledges the difficulty of attempting to tell parents how to raise their children. “As a practical political matter, whites cannot tell black parents to change their parenting practices without provoking charges of ethnocentrism, racism, and much else.” Importantly, the study also surmised that closing the achievement gap would do more to advance racial equality in the United States than any other strategy they were considering at the time.

NOTE: The achievement gap between white and minority students in Minnesota is as large as it is not because our minority students do worse than the national average but because our white students do much better.

As proposed, HF1150 (2017 Regular Session): Establish as a primary objective an increase of the average farebox recovery ratio, calculated for all regular routes and lines operated by the council, to at least 80 percent by 2022.

As enacted, HF3 (2017 Special Session): Requires a report to “include a section that identifies the total ridership, farebox recovery ratio, and per-passenger operating subsidy for (1) each route and line in revenue operation by a transit provider, including guideways, busways, and regular route bus service; and (2) demand-response service and special transportation service.”

As proposed, SF2244 (2017 Regular Session): An employer is allowed a credit equal to $2,000 per secondary school student, age 16 or older, participating in a youth skills program.

As enacted, SF1456 (2017 Regular Session): $500,000 once to the commissioner of labor and industry for grants to local partnerships for the implementation and coordination of local youth skills training programs.

For example, SF224 (2015 Regular Session): “Driving card” means a class D driver’s license, provisional license, instruction permit, motorized bicycle operator’s permit, or motorized bicycle instruction permit, that is issued or issuable under the laws of this state by the commissioner to a person who is unable to demonstrate lawful presence in this country through current lawful admission status, permanent resident status, indefinite authorized presence status, or United States citizenship.

As enacted, HF470 (2017 Regular Session): The commissioner of public safety is prohibited from adopting any final rule that amends, conflicts with, or has the effect of modifying requirements in Minnesota Rules that require proof of legal status to acquire a driver’s license. State statute remains silent on the issue.

In 1999 Leon Botstein, long-time president of Bard College (and conductor of the American Symphony) first proposed starting school at 4- or 5-years-old and graduating high school students at age 16.

Botstein argued that teenagers mature much faster than they did when high schools were first invented. He also argued, nearly 20 years ago, that “Information and images, as well as the real and virtual freedom of movement we associate with adulthood, are now accessible to every 15- and 16-year-old.”

Consider:

In 2015 7,575 public high school students, 759 nonpublic pupils, and 1,842 home school high school students earned 167,206 credits at state colleges and universities in a program called Post Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO). The State of Minnesota paid $31.8 million to participating colleges and universities on behalf of these students.

What is the fate of these signature
Democrat and Republican bills
in a Republican-controlled legislature?*

Democrat:

SF10: Requires electors to vote for the popular vote winner of a presidential election.No hearing and no bill with similar language got a hearing. No House hearing.HF65: Imposes a surtax on corporations with a high ratio of executive to worker pay. No hearing and no bill with similar language got a hearing. No Senate hearing.SF101: Amends the Minnesota Constitution to guarantee gender equality. No hearing and no bill with similar language got a hearing. No House hearing.SF134: Requires special prosecutors for certain police use of force cases and prohibits use of grand juries. No hearing and no bill with similar language got a hearing. No House hearing.HF245: Automatically registers driver’s license applicants to vote. No hearing and no bill with similar language got a hearing. No Senate hearing.HF277: Amends the Minnesota Constitution to declare healthcare a fundamental right. No hearing and no bill with similar language got a hearing. No Senate hearing.HF275: Creates a commission to develop a strategic plan to address impact of climate change on health and well-being of Minnesotans. No hearing and no bill with similar language got a hearing. No Senate hearing.

Republican:

SF19: Reduces the state tax on Social Security income. Included in Republican tax bill.
HF26: Requires local law enforcement to comply with federal immigration detainers. No House hearing. No Senate companion.HF238: Allows the use of lethal force in defense of one’s home, repeals the duty to retreat. Heard in committee. Laid over for inclusion in omnibus bill.HF55: Increases the penalty for obstructing traffic. Similar HF390 awaiting floor vote. Senate companion moving.SF65: Requires zero-based budgeting: state agencies must justify all expenses each budget period. Passed one committee, pending in Finance Committee.HF188: Establishes the right to carry a firearm without a permit.Heard in committee. Laid over for inclusion in omnibus bill.SF150: Prohibits the Met Council from spending money on light rail without explicit legislative approval. Passed two committee, pending in Finance Committee.

Since statehood in 1849, the Minnesota legislature has passed 46,766 laws. In 2014 the legislature and the governor repealed 1,175 state laws that were outdated, unnecessary or, in a few cases, absurd to our modern thinking.

How legislators establish their partisan credentials
and signal core policy positions of their parties

Republicans and Democrats introduce bills that assure voters
of their loyalty to positions on key issues and define their parties

Democrat:

SF10: Requires electors to vote for the popular vote winner of a presidential electionHF65: Imposes a surtax on corporations with a high ratio of executive to worker paySF101: Amends the Minnesota Constitution to guarantee gender equalitySF134: Requires special prosecutors for certain police use of force cases and prohibits use of grand juriesHF245: Automatically registers driver’s license applicants to voteHF277: Amends the Minnesota Constitution to declare healthcare a fundamental rightHF275: Creates a commission to develop a strategic plan to address impact of climate change on health and well-being of Minnesotans

Republican:SF19: Reduces the state tax on Social Security income
HF26: Requires local law enforcement to comply with federal immigration detainersHF238: Allows the use of lethal force in defense of one’s home, repeals the duty to retreatHF55: Increases the penalty for obstructing trafficSF65: Requires zero-based budgeting: state agencies must justify all expenses each budget periodHF188: Establishes the right to carry a firearm without a permitSF150: Prohibits the Met Council from spending money on light rail without explicit legislative approval
There are also perennial favorites with bi-partisan support, though not enough to pass so far.

SF235: Repeals the ban on certain fireworksSF152: Increases the speed limit on I-35E, the “practice freeway”

There are 7,382 state senators and representatives in our country’s 50 state legislatures. In their 2015-16 legislative sessions, they passed a total of 29,122 bills into law. Over the same two years Congress enacted just 199 new laws.

Minnesota’s 201 legislators passed and Gov. Dayton signed into law 184 bills during our 2015-16 biennial session. These state laws impact every corner of Minnesotans’ lives. For example, new laws

Legislatures are not only productive and wide-ranging. They also move fast. For most there are just a few months to introduce a piece of legislation, discuss it in one or more committees, pass it with a floor vote in two chambers and get a governor’s signature. Minnesota’s recent biennial session was nineteen weeks in 2015 and eleven weeks in 2016.

Is passing more laws necessarily a good thing? Conservative humorist P.J. O’Rourke said, “I vote Republican because they have fewer ideas.”

Last year Minnesota taxpayers spent $247 million from federal, state and county dollars to help parents pay for child care. The State of Minnesota subsidizes the cost of day care for more than 30,000 low income children each month.

For low income families in a basic sliding fee program, the average total monthly assistance was $1,030; for families in the Minnesota Family Investment Program, who are making more than 47 percent of the state median income, the average total monthly assistance was $1,486.

Along with proposals in the 2015-16 legislative session to generally increase funding, some unsuccessful attempts to expand child care assistance included HF3194, appropriating $3 million for at-home infant care; HF3275, increasing eligibility for child care assistance for parents who are in graduate school; and SF 3056, providing child care grants to help recruit, prepare and retain women in high–wage, high demand, nontraditional jobs.

Because of serious fraud in the day care system the legislature in 2015 gave the Department of Human Services more power to investigate and prosecute fraud, including one St. Paul day care center that bilked the State of more than $4 million that would have otherwise paid for care for a low-income child.

The 2016 legislature also passed a bill, SF 3208, that established a child care task to address the affordability of child care and related issues. The task force will report its findings to the legislature in January.

Gov. Dayton has stated that he wants to expand state-funded early education in part because child care is expensive. Parents who don’t qualify for state child care subsidies would no longer have to pay the out-of-pocket costs of child care while their children attend preschool programs. Advocates for expanding public preschool say families would save thousands of dollars every year: One infant and one four-year-old can cost Minnesota parents as much as $25,000 a year for day care.

Gov. Dayton’s original proposal would cost taxpayers $1.25 billion over the first four years, and hundreds of millions of dollars from the general fund every year thereafter.

You paid $34,000 of a St. Paul homeowner’s $50,000 rooftop solar system

St Paul homeowners received a credit on their federal income taxes and a rebate from Xcel Energy to reduce the cost of their home solar electric system by more than 60%.

The federal government allows homeowners to take a credit on their income taxes of 30% of the cost of installing residential solar electric systems.

Xcel Energy gave the homeowners a one-time rebate when they installed their system. Xcel now pays residential producers of solar electricity annually based on the amount they produce, which adds up to hundreds of dollars a year.

The Made in Minnesota program offers rebates per kilowatt hour of electricity produced when the panels are certified as made in Minnesota. Our state commerce commissioner sets the amount of the incentive payment “by determining the average amount of incentive payment required to allow an average owner of installed solar photovoltaic modules a reasonable return on their investment.”

The myth of oil company subsidies: According to the Congressional Budget Office, federal energy tax subsidies in 2013 were $16.4 billion–$7.3 billion for renewable energy and $3.2 billion for fossil fuels. In addition, the U.S. Department of Energy spent $3.4 billion–$1.7 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy and $0.5 billion for fossil fuels.

Many of the supposed subsidies to the oil and gas industries are available to all U.S. businesses.

This preferential treatment for some means higher taxes for others, both individuals and businesses. In addition, tax credits, loans and grants to business compete for tax dollars that might be used for equally important and more enduring elements of a healthy economy such as education and infrastructure.

Serious questions abound about the effectiveness of business incentives. These include the “but for”–would the project have occurred anyway without state aid? Does state aid give a business an advantage over a competitor in the state? Do some of the benefits accrue to other states? How can we measure the results of these programs, given the many variables in a complex economy? And last, are these economic development efforts the best and proper way to meet the obligations of state government?

A Minnesota House Research report states that “some tax expenditures reflect historical quirks or following federal or other state structures, rather than carefully considered decisions that use of the tax system is the optimal way to achieve specific nontax policy objectives.” Once enacted, tax credits can continue in perpetuity unless the legislature acts to repeal them. And they grow as the population and economy grow.

The Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB) was created to divert taxes on taconite to a fund to diversify an economy dependent on mining and to encourage community and workforce development. It was called by one critic, “The Iron Range Re-elect and Reward Board.” Area senators, all Democrats, constitute the Board. IRRRB’s budget last year was $85 million, spent primarily on grants and loans to area businesses, cities and towns.

A recent auditor’s report criticized the Board for sloppy oversight. It found that IRRRB did not measure the impact of loans and that many loan recipients did not meet the stated objectives. Among notable failures is Giants Ridge, a resort owned by the Board, which has lost millions of dollars over the past decade.

Despite the investment of money and personnel, there is a persistent gap in achievement levels of white and non-white students, especially in Minnesota. It is important to note, however, that only one-third of the achievement gap can be attributed to factors within the school. Other factors such as poverty, homelessness and poor health and nutrition account for two-thirds of the gap. That is the so-called “opportunity gap.”

Should our schools do more? Advocates believe that a new model called the “full service community school” will shrink the opportunity gap and, ultimately, the achievement gap. A full service community school is a place that not only educates our children but also provides access for families to food, clothing, housing, health care, parenting classes and other services. Congress has authorized $55 million in grants to establish trial full service community schools throughout the country.

Four schools in Minnesota, in Minneapolis, Rochester, Duluth and Brooklyn Center, were among the first to receive funding from the federal government to experiment with this new model. Brooklyn Center Community High School, which converted in 2009, and Myers-Wilkins in Duluth have had good results with improved attendance, graduation rates and test scores in these low-performing schools.

Could you pass a Minnesota citizenship test? Take the quiz below and see what you know about our state!

What is our state motto?

Who is our current governor?

Which political party has the majority in the Minnesota House of Representatives? Which party has the majority in the Minnesota Senate?

Roughly, how much is the state’s 2015-2016 general fund budget? Bonus: Roughly, how much will the State spend in the 2015-2016 “all-funds” budget?

Which of these rights is guaranteed by the Minnesota Constitution but not by the U.S. Constitution? No debtor’s prison, private property can’t be taken for public use, no standing army in peacetime, no ex post facto law.

What two Minnesotans served as U.S. Vice President?

Name one of Minnesota’s 17 Fortune 500 companies.

Who is Minnesota’s largest employer?

Minnesota is the top producer of several commodities. Name one. Bonus: What percent of our population is employed in the business of farming?

Who robbed the First National Bank of Northfield, Minnesota, on September 7, 1876?

What caused hundreds of Minnesotans to starve from 1873-1877, an event made famous, in part, by Laura Ingalls Wilder?

In 2015 Minnesota drivers paid $2.7 billion to build and repair state, county and local roads: $1.9 billion from Minnesota gas tax and tab fees, $500 million from federal gas taxes and $318 million in highway bonds.

A bill has been introduced in the Minnesota House of Representatives that asks voters to repeal the so-called Legacy Amendment to the state constitution that dedicates sales tax revenue to the arts and outdoors, and instead spend the money on roads, bridges and clean water.

The 3/8 of 1% sales tax imposed by the Legacy Amendment currently generates more than $300 million a year.

The Legacy Amendment, Article XI, Section 15 of the Minnesota constitution, specifically states that the money raised must add to other state funding for the arts and outdoors, not replace it. Legislators may not appropriate the funds elsewhere even when there are greater or more urgent needs, such as a seriously deficient system of roads and bridges.

Since the amendment passed in 2008 it has collected $1.8 billion. Here’s where $348 million in legacy funds was spent in 2015. The money is generally turned over to state agencies to spend, but in the first four years, private, non-profit organizations such as Minnesota Public Radio and Pheasants Forever received more than $165 million.

Along with the legacy money, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources currently spends hundreds of millions each year from the general fund and from other funds dedicated to specific purposes. For example, the Game and Fish Fund collected $106.6 million from licenses, fees and permits in 2015.

The 2014 bonding bill authorized $63 million for the DNR as well as other funds for parks and trails, water and arts projects.

If the Legacy Amendment is repealed, projects that have been funded from these sales tax proceeds, such as $325,000 to the Will Steger Foundation to educate Minnesotans about climate change or $176,000 to expand a Silver Bay greenhouse or $73,000 for a production of Urinetown, would now have to compete with projects such as $15 million to repair a deadly 10-mile stretch of Highway 12.

Did you know? Minnesota has the fifth most road miles of all the states, tens of thousands more miles than Florida, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania—and Wisconsin!

Four score and seven years ago our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new conceivednation 3/16

Minnesota individuals and businesses donated $1.6 billion to charities and foundations last year. More than three-fourths of Minnesota’s foundations were founded by individuals and donated more than half of the funds.

People making more than $102,000 a year paid 74% of all state income taxes.

Minnesota businesses also paid $1.4 billion in state corporate income taxes and $840 million in statewide property taxes. They paid 42% of all state sales taxes.